"I could not possibly be more thrilled than to be more than 100 miles away from Washington's swamp, spending my evening with all of you with a much, much larger crowd and much, much better people". In his most authentic moments as President, most recently in Harrisburg, he has made himself into a riveting but also terrifying spectacle that is the shame of the Republican Party and the nation.

The stars of the night were Watergate reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, who recounted what they learned about journalism from their reporting for The Washington Post that helped lead to President Richard Nixon's resignation more than 40 years ago. "Others may disagree about that".

Trump also said the administration of Barack Obama had resulted in "a mess", stressing that he was ready for "great battles to come and we will win in every case".

Trump has been warning of a possible clash with the North Korea in recent days, saying there could be a "major, major conflict".

But this year President Donald Trump is skipping the dinner on what is his 100th day in office.

The state was critical to Trump's victory.

Trump, for his part, spent his evening bitterly attacking the media at his rally, although it did end early enough for him to catch Minhaj's speech if he had any interest in watching it. "You guys would always sneak up on me with "gotcha" questions, like, "Why are we going to war?' Gotcha, and "Why did you not respond to Hurricane Katrina?' Gotcha", he joked in character".

Trump's absence at the dinner was palpable.

Mr Trump was the first president to miss the gala since Ronald Reagan did so in 1981 because he was recovering from an assassination attempt.

The last time Trump attended the dinner was in 2011, when he was a NY real estate mogul and reality-TV star who had just jumped into politics by getting involved in the "birther" movement, calling for President Barack Obama to release his birth certificate.

Trump then went on to needle the media, touching on familiar themes and picking on his standard targets. After serving as commander in chief for 100 days, his achievements, as well as shortfalls, were being closely scrutinized. His legislative failures on health care have been matched by multiple defeats in the courts in his effort to ban visitors from several majority-Muslim countries from our shores.